_____________________________
Rev. Naomi Chambers |
Convention Aims To Boost
Baptist Church Membership
By Rosaland Tyler
Assistant Editor
New Journal and Guide
Some things will change and yet remain the same, when the Virginia Baptist State Convention holds its 141st annual session at the Chesapeake Conference Center from May 12-16.
Aimed at attracting more young adults this year, the four-day convention will feature an opening-night concert that is expected to include a mass-choir with 2000 members. Praise dancers will also perform. Throughout the week, the convention will feature diverse events such as a president’s banquet, and special events designed specifically for youth, women, men, and Baptist from overseas.
“We have been changing much of our tradition,” said the Rev. Dr. Naomi P. Chambers, who is the moderator of the Sharon Missionary Baptist Association, which is co-hosting this year’s convention with Tidewater-Peninsula Baptist Association.
“We are coming into the 21st century with open minds and the desire of our constituents,” said Chambers, the first female to head the SMBA in 93 years. “I had to tell myself, when I was elected that this is an act of the Almighty. I’m here in this position not as a female but as a leader. I have to help lift up the organization to help it grow.”
This is one reason why convention planners will include the old and new at the upcoming convention. The overall goal is to increase the population of the churches, said Chambers, whose organization currently oversees 30 member-churches in Hampton Roads.
So the convention will feature a free-opening night musical that will require a ticket. To attract more youth, middle-age women, and men, Chambers said, plans call for featuring more trumpets, praise dancers, and representatives from Africa, as she did at her inaugural session which was held in July 2007.
There are other experienced convention planners who are also offering input that will help the convention move forward. For example, there is the Rev. Maurice Chambers, who has pastored Suffolk’s Pleasant Union Baptist Church for 35 years. He has attended the annual Baptist convention for 20 years.
“We are attempting to keep up with the times,” Chambers said. “We have more seminary-trained pastors now and more enlightened congregations as a result.”
As Jesus preached an inclusionary message to everyone he met, so it is with those who are planning this event, Chambers explained. “Jesus was everything to everybody. He did not just try to reach the upper class. So, we must also reach down and try to reach those who are outside of our circle, such as those who are in jail, are on drugs, or living on the streets.”
This philosophy has caused attendance at the convention to steadily increase each year. “It has grown,” said Geraldine Hopson, first vice moderator of the Tidewater-Peninsula Baptist Association. “This is our year of moving forward and addressing the issues of a new day and a new generation.
“For example, you have more people who are going abroad as missionaries. And you have people who are coming from India and Africa to preach the gospel in America,” Hopson said. |
Posted April 23, 2008
Another change is the effort to engage and educate young people. So specific workshops and sessions at this year’s convention will be aimed at middle and high school students. One session will be held called, The Pitfalls of High School Culture. There’s another session titled, The Middle School Years and the Challenges Kids Face.
Conference planners are determined to consistently attract more young people this year. “They will have to learn what the convention is all about; because, they will have to carry on the convention in the years to come,” said Second Calvary Baptist Church member Mary Summerville, who has attended the annual convention for 20 years. She is also the director of registration for the convention.
“I love working with the convention each year—if love is not too strong a word,” said Summerville, who said she sold her pastor’s books from a table at her first convention. “I did pretty well,” she said. Years later, as a delegate she traveled to Roanoke.
“I liked all the people, the workshops, and the fellowship,” she said. “People were also selling things at the convention. I liked being up in the mountains, the fresh air, and being away from the hustle and bustle.”
These widespread concerns--which are being considered by leaders who are planning the upcoming convention—are actually shared by all denominations, the Rev. Walter Sundberg notes in, Religious Trends in Twentieth-Century America.
Many churches are trying to appeal to Generation X--people now in their 30s and 20s--who often attend and support local congregations but resist becoming members.
“Mainline church membership is in decline, while conservative churches are growing,” Sundberg noted. “Eight denominations are commonly cited as belonging to the mainline: American Baptist Churches in the USA, Christian Church, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed Church, United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.
“Mainline denominations have suffered a loss of members since 1965. Some of these numbers are quite dramatic, others less so. But, during this same period, the population of the US grew by nearly 30 percent,” Sundberg said.
However, this trend is not affecting historic African American churches, according to the 2008 Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches, which tracks per-capita financial giving.
African-American churches rank No. 6 nationwide among the nation’s largest churches. Moreover, African Americans typically contribute a larger percentage of their income to charity than other group, donating $9 of every $10 to churches and religious institutions, according to a 2007 Philanthropy News Digest report.
Click Here to Subscribe to the New Journal and Guide. |
